The System Safety Skeptic

Welcome to The System Safety Skeptic

Information provided here will help engineers, managers, stakeholders, and the general public better understand and promote system safety methods in order to reduce risk in complex systems. It will also raise awareness of the need to question these methods and express appropriate concerns about safety engineering and management efforts.

What is System Safety?

System safety is an accepted approach to analyze and manage hazards and risks in complex systems. Many different industries use system safety analyses and methods to help reduce the potential for harm to people, property and the environment. More...

What is a System Safety skeptic?

A System Safety Skeptic is one who uses knowledge, experience, and judgment to evaluate, question, and raise appropriate concerns about safety engineering and management.More...

Why be skeptical of System Safety analyses?

Advanced technologies and increasing automation have forever changed how systems work and how people interact with them. This results in increasingly complex transportation systems, energy production systems, medical devices, manufacturing processes, and many other systems. When used correctly, system safety methods can provide tremendous benefits, focusing resources to reduce risk and improve safety in these complex systems. But poor system safety analyses can lead organizations down the wrong path, spending resources on low risk activities while overlooking the larger risks. When applied inappropriately, system safety methods can lead to overconfidence, and can result in underestimating the potential for harm. Therefore, safety practitioners, decision makers, and stakeholders must cultivate a healthy skepticism of safety engineering and management efforts.

Explore this site to learn more about system safety, and possibly become a “System Safety Skeptic” too.

DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this informational web site is to educate. The information here should only be used as a general guide, and should not be considered to be the source for any safety decisions. The author of this web site, his past and present employers, and his clients share neither liability nor responsibility for any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused, by information obtained from this site.